I once stood on the canyon ledge — the Grand Canyon — on one of its many precipices, with the toes of my chuck all stars hugging the very edge of its footing. I stood there, breathless. Enraptured. It’s a spell-binding experience, taking in the infinite greatness of that wonder before you. Your own body — your own life — grow to seem quite infinitesimal in that space.

Recently, I had a strikingly similar experience. In one single instant, I realized how incredibly fragile our lives are; how inconceivably fleeting a single lifetime is, and how greatly we all take this thing for granted. This life. This love. This momentary human experience that is so unbelievably diverse with pains and joys, hopes and fears. It occurred to me, that nothing else matters besides love.

It’s not about fluffy feelings and pretty flowers and cliche greeting cards. It’s about selfless, unwavering, brightly shining Love. The Love that throws itself face first in the mud to keep another safe. Whole. Joyful. Comforted. The Love that never tires, never hesitates, refuses to back down, pierces through the deepest midnight and illuminates the heart of Life. The Love that accepts no second best, allows no room for excuses, bears no room for complacency or apathy.

It’s Love on fire, Love in motion, perpetuating itself with every moment that you’re in it. It needs no rest, has no end, takes no breaks and wins every battle.

That’s important. What we’re all forgetting is that the Love that brought us into this world is the only thing that will see us through this world.

We are not of this world. What does that mean? It means recognizing this one simple truth…

Lies to be await in greed, catastrophes and terror attacks: love, and other fiscal facts or fiction acts, these cataracts can blind the bliss inside of thee. Unserene, in flight careens my purpose from your point of view. It fits, I wear it. Freedom’s shoe. (Never on the other foot, but then again what else is new.) Stars will shine as mountains move when feet shall kiss the morning dew.

Yes, it’s true. I stand in blue, but sit in red for me shalln’t do. The owl sings, “Coo coo ca choo,” his lonesome twilight song to you. A funeral has sounded and a death-march rhythm sways here too. Resounding, see; abounds in me, complacency warps everything. Pretense pars the course for you — effective is this angle! — when the righteousness and sacredness of matrimony won’t compute.
Will or would not, can untangle. All the deep deceptions mangle any hope we had to soothe and winds will soon die down til there is nothing left of what we knew.

I voted in my college years; you wouldn’t recognize me, no. Not then not now, the bloated cow, too rotten for my stomach. Soul. Loudly testifying, oh the edifying rocks must roll; collect no moss and get our due awaiting what becomes of you. Oh what are we abiding?

Rub the crystal ball, she sings. Jezebel shall kiss the ring — confess, repent, forgive, it’s gold! — and this is how corrupt unfolds, no holy hold have slaves to the big-bad-machine until untold a million other depths unseen become the countless shades of green. Envy rouge but seldom who; “adding unto nothing new and seldom question what we do…” This defines the core of you while everything grows empty. Ew.

Fine me if you must or dare, charge it to me fair and square. Lenience, of lingered leaning keeps the pride-man (misdemeaning all the wrongs he sees within me) laughs a victor’s type of laugh. Here, the place can trump the path. But I don’t care, there’s nothing there, the lens is out of focus. Map? Nothing more or less than math. Divide divide divided.

Looking glass and bell jar too, the lighthouse shines its light for you but who controls the sails within? There is no aim, there’s only sin. Mindless satisfies in him the whole and sum of parts un-kin.

No, I longer no abide no biting nonsense no and sigh; the prey is screaming haiku isms, help was always on the way. Bite the tongue the heart shall pray but we will lose the trail and stay not ever in one single place. My, we make a maddened schism. Meaningless, the sufferage in them; silent tragic cataclysm. Lost so we can wander; stay, and keep my sorrows long at bay for thee, the bell must toll and pay. Penance for the huge misgivings, not repentance. Not to give me. Not to think of karmic due. Not for us, but only you. Always always only who is early gets the dirty worm; the bird of prey will watch him squirm while merciless the beak shall chomp and chew your broken soul in two. Chomp the life right out of you.

Throughout the course of my blogging experiences (as well as most of my life experiences lately), I’ve acquired a great accumulation of advice-type correspondences. I suppose this is the result of my deeply inquisitive nature, met with my love of people and my natural tendency of quickly recognizing the source of conflict and involuntarily recognizing possible solutions to said conflict(s). Surprisingly, I’ve discovered an overwhelming receptiveness to my advice; and in almost every circumstance, the advice was transformative and greatly helped in some way.

I enjoy the power of conflict-resolution; God created an uncanny desire within me to use my deep (and often overwhelming) empathy as a source for good in the lives of those around me. That very desire — the longing to bring a sense of peace and clarity and a fresh perspective to anyone who is struggling, hurting, confused, and/or in need of encouragement, direction, input, or advice of any kind — has created a very cool (and unexpected) path before me:

I’m starting an ‘advice column’ of sorts.

I’m not Dear Abby, but it seems to me there is a great need for holistic encouragement in many different walks of life, for many different reasons; and for whatever reason, it seems to be something God has gifted in me.

As I grow my advice page (it will be on this blog, as a separate page eventually), I will be accepting questions, inquiries, comments, and whatever else you’re inclined to share with me.

I am not a professional therapist, and none of my contributions should replace qualified medical treatment where health or mental health are involved. However, my educational background met with my extensive hands-on experience and training with these real-life problems provide for both an intuitive and an objective approach to the resolution of most conflict experienced within the above parameters of day-to-day real-life issues for all of us.

My goal here is to use the abilities created within me to bring light to the shadows; to bring peace to counter chaos; to help discover clarity where it cannot seem to be found. God willing, this might help a few people who could use a listening ear and a compassionate heart. I’ll be that for you, if you need it.

If you’d like advice with something, or just want someone to listen to you vent your frustrations, you can contact me via email at:

thechampionwithinyou@gmail.com

All correspondences will remain completely confidential, and will not be published without explicit consent. I look forward to talking with you, traveling the unpredictable journeys with you, and being a part of your solution manifestation.

I’ve had my moments lately of head-slamming frustration, fist-shaking anger, prideful temper tantrums where I stomped my foot and marked my territory and made it clear that I’m the boss of me.

Yeah… God won’t stand for that.

Sometimes, like just sucks. It sucks the life right out of you. Sucks your heart dry until all you feel capable of doing is crying, yelling, or disappearing. Anybody who argues against that has never been passionate about anything, has never trusted another human being completely, has never taken a single chance or stepped outside of their comfort zone. Successful people aren’t born successful; success is the result of diligence in the face of fatigue, perseverance in the face of obstacles, willpower in the face of isolation, commitment in the face of disregard. Success implies a necessary challenge; otherwise it would be nothing more than surviving. I don’t want to survive my losses — which are as much a part of life as breathing; I want to succeed from them.

The common misconception about what it means to live for Christ is that you suddenly get a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card.

If only.

It’s quite the contrary. You’ll find yourself facing sudden giants you never saw coming. You’ll find yourself hiking the loneliest mountains you never saw on the horizon. And you might pause in your walk to ask why on earth life became so much harder than it was without God in it.

Atheists (in my own personal experiences) typically possess this generalization that Christians are weak-minded, gullible people with no real desire to learn about how life works, with no real desire to become a successful person who willingly educated themselves about the real world. For any atheists that might be reading this, I dare you to try Christianity on for size. It isn’t for the faint of heart, I’ll tell you that much.

As a person surrenders to the Lord, they begin to see their life and the world around them as if for the first time. It is colorful. It is vivid. It is breathtaking. But the visual is no longer shrouded in old defense mechanisms designed to shield us from the pain. When others fail us or break our hearts we are forced to experience the pain in humility. No retaliating, no bitter words of contempt; nope. It’s forgiveness instead of blame.

I dont care if you’re the Dalai Lama himself; that’s rough. It unnatural to us. It goes against everything we feel entitled to do. And that’s precisely why so much of mainstream Christianity is a dishonest lifestyle in contrast to the true living God.

Success is not living in abundance any more than winning the lottery makes you rich; money comes and goes, friends. Integrity, loyalty, honor: these are the truths that endure forever.

The suffering that comes with walking in the footsteps of Jesus is not a sign that you aren’t Christian enough. It’s a sign that you’re alive, and that quite possibly… You’re getting it right.

Suffering is not from God, period. He is not the source of our many pains. And the fact that we aren’t miraculously rescued from our plights every single time we encounter them is NOT an indication that God is “punishing” us, or that we don’t “deserve” His mercy. In actuality, our very disbelief that we are forced to suffer at all is a great example of how little we understand of what the grace of God really is, and what mercy truly means.

His peace does not remove the problem any more than courage removes the source of fear. If that were the case, it wouldn’t be called peace and it wouldn’t be called courage. Courage requires an element of doom, it demands a certain challenge within us. Likewise, peace would not be peace without the presence of chaos. Yin and yang; that’s life. That’s real.

To suggest to a hurting person that God believes you can handle what you’re going through is like saying God is made of marshmallows. Ridiculous. If we could handle it on our own, what would be the point? He created us and He died for our salvation because He loved us unconditionally, and because He knew we needed Him. Do we bring children into this world because we are excited to have a baby and immediately send it off into the real world? That would be a huge waste of nine BRUTAL months, if you’re a woman. Naturally, we create our children with immense love, and a huge part of that love is tied into the daily things we do for them. Teaching them how to feed themselves, how to walk, how to read, how to take a bath and brush their teeth and handle bullies and be a friend to others. Those are the most meaningful parts of being a parent; the most beautiful aspects of having a child.

God knew we would be lost and hopeless without Him, and that is exactly why He paid the ultimate price for our redemption, so that we could hold on to the hope above all hope when there was no hope to be seen around us. We can do all things through Christ who STRENGTHENS US. Not through Christ who makes our life ice cream flavored happiness with rainbow celebrations in place of grief.

But I’m finding my own little rainbows in the middle of the thunderstorms. And the intensity of these rainbows is more brilliant than any box of Lucky Charms ever could be.

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